NTT Plans ASE Launch, Expands to Munich

NTT Communications (NYSE:NTT, news, filings) added more infrastructure expansions to this weeks news yesterday and today on either side of the planet.

Within their home Asia-Pacific turf, NTT says it and its regional partners will be launching operations of the Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) on August 20. The 40G cable will lower the latency bar between Tokyo and Singapore by more than 3ms to below 65ms. Initially the system will branch off to the Philippines and Malaysia along the way, with Hong Kong to come in the first quarter of 2013. Combined with NTT's existing low latency PC-1 route to the US and on to Chicago and yesterday's addition of TEA connectivity to London, it is clear that NTT is making a significant play for the global low latency backbone market.

And over in Europe, NTT continued to expand its geographical coverage with more depth in Germany. They've now added a PoP to their IP backbone in Munich, giving them six PoPs in three German markets now. Demand from a gaming customer, Travian Games, says it is already using the connectivity. NTT has been aggressively building out its European footprint to match its large US presence, adding three Eastern European nodes last fall, Amsterdam over the winter, and Milan just last month.